The TTOR shorebird techs had been waiting to see what would hatch from under the Black Skimmer pair out at Norton Point at Katama Bay inside the southeast corner of Martha’s Vineyard. The birds had laid one egg, annexed two Least Tern eggs into their nest and laid a second of their own. According to observers, one or two of the tern eggs hatched but did not make it for long. One of the skimmer eggs hatched into a healthy chick, which we saw today. We were told a second pair had arrived and laid eggs – it turned out to be three of them. Four of us, including Martin, the Swedish Phd candidate taking a three week intensive on molecular biology over in Woods Hole at the Marine Biology Lab, then discovered a third pair of skimmers in residence. All very exciting. The skimmers are incredible on the wing!
The beginning:
Three adults are a little tight, but not so bad:
The casual ease of flight:
Albatross wannabe:
This is for the guys who went out with me today:
Best shot – a trio of grace on the wing:
Birds are cool! Lanny
These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.
I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog. There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve. Not on the list? Want to be? Just contact me saying you want to be on the list or, better yet, subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email. Getting off the list is just as simple.
